Dollu National Film Award Controversy: Director Sagar Puranik Reacts To Resul Pookutty's Tweet

Dollu, the highly acclaimed Kannada film won big at the National Film Awards 2022. The Sagar Puranik directorial won the award for Best Kannada Film and Best Audiography under the Location Sound Recordist category. But, the National Film Awards jury has been called out for giving the award to Dollu in the Best Audiography category, as it is solely meant for sync sound films.

Resul Pookutty, the Oscar award-winning sound designer took to his official Twitter page and criticized the National Film Awards jury for giving the award which is meant for a sync sound film, to Dollu. "The film that won the #SyncSoundRecording #NationalAwards is not even a sync sound film, it's a dubbed film, confirms the Sound Designer of the film @nithin_lukose," reads Pookutty's tweet.

Director Sagar Puranik reacted to the controversy with an official statement, recently. "We never claimed that our film is made in sync sound. Even in the application form, there is no mention of the word sync sound. I am also confused as to why we have been awarded under this category. But I'm assuming they have given the award probably recognising and acknowledging how hard it was for us to recreate the sounds of Dollu," said the director.

According to the filmmaker, there are three to four performances in the film, which were not recreated in a studio setup. Sagar Puranik revealed that the team had to go to the location where eight to ten Dollu artists had to recreate every frame and every beat of the performance. The filmmaker feels that the jury members had probably considered all this before deciding to give them the award. The Dollu director concluded that they will never claim that it is a sync sound film.